


These Little Words (somehow they're changing us)

by PrinceofHellebore (PrinceofPlants)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Zolf Smith, Canon Asexual Character, Love Confessions, M/M, Post 178, Spoilers ep 178, actually sleeping together, qpr, they get to rest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofPlants/pseuds/PrinceofHellebore
Summary: Zolf lays a hand over Wilde’s heart.  He can feel now Wilde’s pulse in one hand and the rise and fall of Wilde’s breathing with the other.  This is how Zolf falls asleep, assured of Wilde’s life.Wilde wakes after his resurrection and Zolf is there.
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 18
Kudos: 79





	These Little Words (somehow they're changing us)

**Author's Note:**

> Folks the biggest take away from this is they just get to sleep so much. They sleep so much their friends are worried about them. They get to rest!
> 
> The title is from Sleeping at Last _You Are Enough_

The pyre burns low. The blinding light leaves an after image in his eyes, a splash of blue shadow that overlays everything for minutes after its over. No one moves, not for what feels like hours to Zolf’s weary legs and mind, not until the fire is truly burnt out. And then they do, it is neither hurried nor slow. Their hosts are impossibly gracious, patient, they are there and not as is appropriate. As the Kobolds break from their ring around the pyre, Sohra returns. Zolf can see other attendants among their group now, offering food, drink. 

“I think now that it is beds that you wish for. We have places for you nearby.” The thought of bed consumes Zolf. He has rarely felt so bone weary as now. He goes to Wilde’s still sleeping form, there are two attendants there to carry. Zolf would have wanted to take one end but knows in his state he is not capable. 

They are taken to a building, he thinks building but it seems that really the whole city exists not as discrete buildings but rather a warren of connected rooms and alleys, bridges cross over-head connecting the upper levels. Zolf thinks of Sasha, she would love this, the maze of it. Wilde is carried into a room and shifted carefully onto a bed. There’s a second one on the other side of the room.

He looks at Sohra. “What is it that you need.” He looks around, “a chair.” One is brought, and they back from the room leaving him. Zolf arranges the chair close to the bed and sits. He knows he can’t keep vigil, but he can stand to sleep like this, what he can’t stand is the idea of Wilde waking with no one near. 

He’s done this before and tucks his chin into his chest and closes his eyes. It’s only moments before he realizes he’s struggling to drift off despite his exhaustion. There’s some niggling doubt keeping him conscious. He looks at Wilde again, sees his chest expand and then fall in slow even rhythm. Its immensely reassuring to see. Zolf closes his eyes and fails to sleep. He holds Wilde’s hand where it lays and tries again. Even this doesn’t seem enough. Zolf shifts the chair up to the bed as close as he can get it. He pulls Wilde’s hand into his lap, holding it in one hand. The other he lays over Wilde’s heart. He can feel now Wilde’s pulse at his fingertips where they lay against the inside of his wrist. His other hand rises and falls with Wilde’s breathing. This is how Zolf falls asleep, assured of Wilde’s life.

Awareness returns to Oscar slowly. He feels warm, like sitting too close to a fire, burning but comfortably so. It’s almost too much but then he thinks its better than to be cold. There’s a weight, slight but present on his chest, and someone is holding his extended hand. Their fingers gently curled over his palm and wrist. He opens his eyes, its slow, they feel crusted over, like when he’s overslept. The room is dimly lit by firelight, its constructed of bare wood tightly fitted together. It reminds him of his cabin on the airship, though its much larger, if still small. He turns his head slowly to the side. The figure in the chair beside him, despite being in silhouette, is recognizably Zolf. Oscar thinks he could have guessed as much by the feel of the hand in his. The weight on his chest is Zolf’s other hand gently resting over his heart. For as hot as he feels there’s no blanket or furs covering him. He moves his right hand and settles it over Zolf’s. He thinks of closing his eyes again, he’s still tired. He does.

Zolf wakes, his head lifting. The hand that lays over Wilde’s heart is now enclosed in Wilde’s other hand. His long fingers curl around Zolf’s own in a loose grip. They are cooler than his but not like ice, not like death. He’s still breathing, his pulse still beats under Zolf’s fingers. Had he woken? Or had he only shifted from sleeping under the remnants of the ritual’s magic to a natural sleep. Zolf had missed it either way. He tries to remain awake in case Wilde wakes again but sleep takes Zolf anyway. 

Oscar wakes again. It is less slow this time and he feels less hot now. The light doesn’t seem to have changed at all so it seems unlikely that all that much time has passed. Zolf hasn’t moved from his position. He’s still holding Oscar’s hand just as Oscar is holding his. Oscar smiles, the muscles pull in a strange way, evenly. He reaches to touch the twisted scar that had adorned his cheek for over a year and finds only smooth skin. 

Zolf’s head lifts. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey Zolf,” Oscar answers, hand returning to the one on his chest before Zolf can withdraw it. 

“How do you feel?”

Oscar hadn’t thought about it yet, there are no pains that bother him. He still feels too warm but its not a bother either. He bends a knee for leverage to turn onto his side, he’d never liked sleeping on his back. His ankle is too light. 

“The cuffs… where are they?”

“I have them. We had to take them off. Do you remember what happened?”

He recalled and his mind swerved away from the memory. “I died, or came so close the difference doesn’t matter.” He’d dreamed too.

Zolf’s lip trembled. “You did. And we were so lucky to crash where we did because we had help bringing you back.”

“From?”

“The people that live here. The Ursans, they provided the means to your resurrection. And Carter’s and Sassara’s. We lost Meerk, he didn’t want to come back.”

“I had strange dreams, before waking, you were there.”

“Yes, I was. That was part of it.”

“I thought the place we started was strange, is that where we are now? A big floating platform in the sky?” The room seemed like the kind he might have found in one of those buildings.

“On the back of a bear.”

“On the back of a what?!”

“On the back of a bear. They’re called the Ursans. You saw the skeletons.”

He had. But he was a lot more comfortable with the notion of floating cities than cities carried on the backs of incomprehensibly huge animals. 

“Right.” Sleep was starting to drag at Oscar again and he fought it. “Would you lie with me?”

“What?”

“Zolf, that chair isn’t a good place to sleep. I can’t imagine that you’ve had any since the crash. There’s room for one more.”

Zolf hesitated but stood, Oscar refused to give him back his hands. Zolf pushed the chair away with his shin. He put one knee on the bed and Oscar realized that he’d have to bunch up a little to allow Zolf to join him. He shifted back so that there was room enough. Over the course of their journey they had shared tents and ship cabins, even shipboard bunks. They’d slept in cells propped up together. Those had all felt accidental. This was intentional. 

Zolf lowered himself to the mattress facing Oscar, cautious in his placement, leaving room. 

“I’m not fragile,” Oscar says. 

“I know.”

“I want you here Zolf.” He curls their intertwined hands into his chest, pressing them there. 

Zolf swallows. “I… there’s more to talk about… about this. I told you the truth about how I feel but I suspect it’s different for you.”

“I’m tired, are you okay with this, how we are now. Just sleeping.”

“Yes,” They’re very close and Zolf tips his head until theirs touch. There are other shifts that bring them closer together.

“Are you warm enough?”

“Frankly I’m a little hot.”

“Your hands feel cold.”

“That’s because you’re a furnace.”

Zolf frowns. “An after effect I’d guess. There’s another bed, I can sleep there if its too much.” 

“It’s not. Stay, please.”

Zolf moves closer again, their knees knock into each other and they have to negotiate whose legs will drape over whose. Zolf, being short ends with one settled over Oscar’s thigh, Oscar’s leg between his. Their arms are curled up between them, hands clasped. That changes too, drowsily, as they sink into sleep, but they always keep a hold. And they sleep again, foreheads touching.

When Oscar wakes again he’s sure that hours have passed. The room is filled with the cool grey light of a winter morning. He’s cold now, except for where Zolf is touching him, a band of warmth across his hip and thigh, a hot hand resting against his ribs. Zolf is still holding one of his hands, the other is caught up in the collar of Zolf’s shirt. Their foreheads still touch, noses just brushing each other. They hadn’t moved an inch since drifting off together. 

Oscar sighs. He extends one finger and strokes along the skin at Zolf’s collarbone. 

“You’re awake.” Zolf says, not opening his eyes.

“So are you, apparently.”

“Have been for awhile.” 

“Are there furs or something, it’s gotten cold.”

Zolf opens his eyes and pulls away slightly, “Yes, there’s a basket of them, let me…” They have to disentangle so that Zolf can rise. He returns with a pile of them. He drapes them across Oscar and then returns to bed as well. There’s a fuss while they fold themselves together and tuck the furs around so that there are no cold drafts sneaking in. 

“Have you slept enough?”

“I think so, for now.”

“Do you want to talk?”

“For once Zolf, I’m not sure what to say.” _And that’s unfair isn’t it, after Zolf had bared his heart to him._ “I… I need you too.” He’d admit love as easily as saying he was hungry. But this made him feel so much more vulnerable.

There’s silence, but Zolf’s hand tightens on his.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Oscar says.

“I’m glad you came back with me. The thought of you not being here… it was… terrible while you weren’t.”

“When did you start to feel this way?”

“I don’t know, it snuck up on me. I’ve never been quick to develop this sort of attachment. It’s uncommon for me. I don’t know where I traversed the line that was mere protectiveness over my team, and into this particular care for you especially.”

“I don’t know where it was for me either… I know when I figured it out, but I must have felt it some time before that. Do you remember that time when you and Carter were in isolation and I made Barnes do the inspections after the first day? I couldn’t bare to look at you and think that you were there and might be dead anyway.”

“I do, and then you were there again the next time.”

“Yes, well I didn’t quite trust Carter to do it properly. And… I felt I owed it to you.” 

“I thought that coldness was to protect against giving away anything. Information and such in case we had turned.”

“In a way it was, but it was also armor against...”

“I’m sorry.”

Oscar shrugs. “It was how it had to be.”

They fall asleep again, or linger in the space between sleeping and waking. The quality of the natural light doesn’t change much so it can’t have been all day that they remain curled together.

“I’m hungry.” Wilde says after a long time silent. 

“We can get up, there’ll be food available somewhere close.” Zolf answers.

“I rather not, I’m not ready to give up lying here with you.” The sentiment fills Zolf with contentment. He’d be happy to remain. But then his own hunger makes itself known.

Zolf smiles, “I think there’s time for both and more than that if you like.”

“What are you offering, Zolf?” Wilde’s voice carries an edge of suggestion that Zolf ignores.

“Breakfast, more sleep, I don’t know, what do you want?”

“Breakfast then, if we can have it here.”

“I’ll go find out.” Zolf leaves the bed; the furs and Wilde’s touch cling to him as long as they can before falling away. Zolf goes to the door and is not surprised to find an attendant waiting outside it. 

“Um…”

“What is it you seek?”

“Some food, I can fetch it if you’ll just point me…”

“It’s here, he slept longer than the other.” There is indeed a tray set nearby and covered.

“Thank you, we owe you so much.”

“You are welcome. This process takes time. We are familiar with the path and we will not abandon you on it. Your companions have come past several times to see if he has risen…”

“We’ll be out soon enough. But…”

They nod and Zolf can tell they’ve understood. “We will keep them from disturbing you.” Zolf flushes. He knows in some sense how Cel, Hamid and Azu may interpret the delay. “It is not uncommon for pairs to need time sequestered.” Zolf’s face heats more. He scoops up the tray of food and shuts the door.

Wilde is sitting now, the furs pooled over his legs. He brushes an idle hand through his hair and then freezes when locks of it fall in front of his face.

“We match now.” Zolf says.

“Eyebrows too? You wouldn’t have a mirror, would you? No, nevermind.” He snaps his fingers. There’s a second Wilde sitting opposite him, pale but identical. It's a weak casting, not unexpected after so long. Wilde cocks his head, eyes narrowing, judgment in the curve of his lips, before he dismisses the illusion.

“You look fine.” Zolf sets the tray before him and climbs back into the bed. It works as a distraction. He pulls the cover from the tray. There are many dishes, familiar looking in their shape but of unknown contents. Almost immediately Zolf can smell smoked fish, but he can also pick out garlic and the tart sweetness of berries. There are little knots of dumplings and open faced pies with folded edges and bright red centers. There’s strips of meat and fish laid out and bowls of porridge. Alongside are pitchers of cream and pots of medium red berries. Zolf realizes he’s starving too. They both tuck in; they’ve become used to not questioning what is laid before them. Wilde still tends to de-construct things he’s unfamiliar with and cuts one of the dumplings open before eating it. They don’t speak for a few minutes while they eat enough to take the edge from their hunger. 

“You were blushing when you returned…” Wilde says after a bite of the porridge. 

“We’ve taken a lot of time. The others were worried.”

Wilde gives him a sidelong look and Zolf flushes again. He can feel the tops of his ears redden. “My reputation embarrasses you.”

“No, just we comport ourselves in different ways. I’m not fond of the undercurrent of knowing looks when people don’t know, can’t understand…”

“You had implied there might be differences in how we regard each other.”

“You imagine there aren’t?”

“No, but ultimately they may be more similar than you expect. I want your presence in my life. Simply put.”

Zolf was quiet. He hadn’t expected Wilde’s attraction to him to mirror his. “That would be enough for you?”

“It has been for months, or at least as much as it can be when unexpressed.” Wilde wasn’t looking at him, his attention still on the tray. His hand waved over the remaining food before selecting the last tiny pie. “It’s not that I wouldn’t be delighted to have other things from you but…” he shrugged and took a bite of the pastry.

“You don’t need to… settle for those desires being unmet.”

“So far I have desired your company, your voice, your presence, your gaze…”

“Vain…” Zolf said.

Wilde frowned at him. “Knowing that you need me, that I’m not… what phrasing did I use? Beating my head against the wall? Cliche, but apt, those desires may grow and change… but I’d not sacrifice what we have for their fulfillment.”

“Right. Thank you.”

Wilde ate a few more of the berries and sighed. “They are expecting us, aren’t they?”

“I think that they are hoping for us to join them, yes.”

“Shall we disappoint them?”

“Unfortunately I think they’ll just be satisfied in other ways.”

Wilde shrugged. “Would you sleep with me again.” The way he says ‘sleep’ tells Zolf that it is meant to fluster him. It doesn’t, not with no one else to hear. It is instead the invitation that he has wanted for a long time. 

“Yes, I’d like nothing else.” They remove the tray from the bed and pull the furs over them once more. They press close, as much contact as they can make so that they are certain the other is there, alive and with them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading,
> 
> Love,  
> Prince of Hellebore


End file.
